Psychiatry and Henry Kissinger

Ben Rhodes' ungenerous eulogy in the November 30 NYTimes is such a beautiful piece of writing, about such a phenomenally significant character during my lifetime, that when I read it aloud to my wife this morning, it was hard for me not to cry. (Maybe it's my age, history makes me cry.) The first paragraph in this guest essay ended with the datum, "Ideas go in and out of style, but power does not."

I'm not too sure about style. But when it comes to power, I am quite sure there is no substitute for an idea. You cannot bomb an idea out of existence. You cannot shoot an idea in the head. And contrary to the apparent modus operendi of medicalized mental health, you cannot drug an idea or manipulate people's brains to control ideas. Behind and beneath any form or any use of mechanical power, there is always an idea. And in the event, that idea might be very slippery. 

For the sake of argument, let's presume that the idea which motivated all the horrible powers of war in recent centuries, and probably throughout human history, has been, "We must reach farther to greater heights, we must get bigger, as individuals, as a group, as a race, as a species. This is the only game." 

Well... what greater heights? Bigger how? If you get bigger, does that mean I am smaller? How is this game organized? Who is the opponent? Do we have referees? 

Power serves ideas, and if ideas go in and out of style, then power changes hands. Saying ideas go in and out of style but power does not, puts the cart before the horse. Purpose and function monitor or control structure, not the other way around. 

I'm currently reading Conflict: The Evolution of Warfare from 1945 to Ukraine, by General David Petraeus and Andrew Roberts. The authors point out that the first and most vital job of any commander is to get the big picture, or the strategy, right, and then to make sure everyone else agrees on that big picture or that strategy. Hence, e.g., in the 1948 War of Independence, a small volunteer Israeli military managed to defeat five professional Arab armies on the other side. The Jews all understood the existential purpose of defending their nascent state, while the Arab soldiers were wondering why they had to be there.

People who believe that power is the thing, power is reality, are usually people who have lost their own motivating ideas, and are therefore likely to lose their power. They only hope ideas will go in and out of style fast enough that their opponents won't stay or become strong.

My clients often come to me in the belief that as a lawyer, I have my hands on the power of the law, which controls the locks on the nuthouse doors confining them as involuntary "patients". The thing they don't understand, and the thing I have to explain to them before I can be of any help, is that the law is not a mechanical power, it is in fact agreements between people, like judges, public defenders, psychiatrists, social workers, neighbors. 

People's ideas control the law. This is true in a big context of who becomes the next President or what nations are allowed to exist; it's also true in the small context of who is mentally ill and dangerous. You have to be able change one person's mind: that's the only way you change any existing power arrangement, whether it be international borders, or court ordered privileges and conditional release.

Malis, Hussain, Corcoran and their ilk seem to believe that people's minds are their brains, and their brains can obviously be manipulated (with the power of drugs, shock, etc.) to affect their minds, to make them think, feel, and behave "better" (meaning more in line with the ideas of other people around them). This is exactly what psychiatry is about, using power to change ideas. 

This is also a source of huge trouble for the ongoing "psychedelic renaissance," which is a mistaken psychiatric strategy. Everybody can see that the drugs are powerful; but they fail to notice, e.g., that psilocybin-as-medicine is fundamentally irreconcilable with psilocybin-as-religion, and the power can never be predictably aimed to change any idea. The ideas, as set-and-setting, direct the power.

The misconception is laughable but for so much blood and treasure wasted on it. Using ideas to change power is much easier. It's what you have to do anyway, because that's now the world works. And just incidentally, when you think you have changed someone's mind by application of mechanical power, you ignore the possibility that you are being deceived, and you render yourself defenseless against someone's real ideas which you can't know or predict. Is Baker King of Egypt?

In Henry Kissinger's time we came to love the mechanical power of nuclear science and medicine, pretending that nuclear science and medicine are not actually our own ideas to begin with. That is hypocrisy.